The Nihil Rule

  a Christmas Eve candlelight sing-along overpowered by the candlepower of the almighty screen

The liturgy shapes the conscience to be like heaven | Listen Notes This was a particularly fantastic episode that took me a few listens and notes to unpack. I wanted to put those notes together for a broader audience, particularly to emphasize the connection of the heavenly council to the liturgy which then impresses our consciences week in and week out. Rev. Weedon has noted in his Revelation studies that novelty for the liturgy is from the future , that is our life in heaven. But it's also for now, as Rev. Wolfmueller shares.  The Heavenly Council - Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation gives us glimpses into the heavenly throne room There are five aspects of the heavenly council Conversation: Jesus' baptism; Ps 22 Court: Job; Revelations 12; Heb 4, 5, 7; Petitioning: Images of prayers and incense Worship: Four creatures Sending: Angels, prophets The Conscience Our conscience is a little courtroom, a little judgement seat, that can go wrong in many ways Instead of accepting the

 

WELS Congregational Services  provides various media for congregations including Bible studies.  In Season and Out of Season  is a 3-part study on evangelism. It's kind of sketch. First, it isn't grounded in doctrine. There is no direct discussion of election, vocation or soteriology - kind of important! Instead the studies revolve around me, and me drawing conclusions from a smattering of Bible passages. It uses a number of evangelical ideas like a four point plan for addressing "your personal mission field" and using unbiblical categories like "de-churched" and "never-churched." One thing that particularly caught my attention was the following What do you think? Preach the gospel in all times and, if necessary, use words.    Well, since you asked... it's a false statement. Zero merit. First, "if necessary" poses a false dichotomy, see Romans 10:10,14ff. Second, re-read John 1! Christ is the Word, made flesh, and we are language-bein

The WELS doctrine of church and ministry tries its best to pull a fast one by stating "It would be wrong to trace the origin of this public ministry to mere expediency (Hoefling)." If you didn't know better, you'd walk away thinking the WELS is repudiating Hoefling's doctrine of church and ministry. But in reality, the WELS doctrine of church and ministry is indeed Hoeflingnite in nature, they only deny that it is derived from 'mere expediency' by sanctifying it with a divine call. Rev. John Berg, in the final issue of the Motley Magpie, explains: The not so secret secret is that the Wisconsin Synod’s doctrine is Hoeflingnite. Francis Pieper in his Dogmatics outlines Hoefling’s position,   Hoefling grants that the ministry is divinely ordained but only in the sense as “everything wise, appropriate, morally necessary” can be said to have “divine sanction,” not in the sense that an express divine command for the establishment of the public ministry can be

Why Screens don't belong in our sanctuaries Screens are contingent. They require power, they require data, they require an intelligent operator. God's Word is not contingent. A hymnal is not contingent. Screens are temporal. Screens only show the immediate moment, they lack context in the flow of liturgical worship. Worship becomes a sequence of moments divorced from the flow of God's giving and our receiving and responding. The speed of worship becomes 30 Hz instead of the call and response of God and the penitent. Screens lack contextual clues. Screens can only show the immediate moment and cannot be placed relative to the other elements of worship.  A worshipper cannot pause and step backwards to ruminate or satisfy a theological curiosity, instead he is dragged forward by an arrow key and PowerPoint. The hymnal provides contextual clues and shows what is behind and what is ahead. A hymnal places the moment in context with the whole. The page on which you are is relat

OK, hear me out....  1. Introduce a gender-neutral bible (NIV11) 2. Introduce a hymnal with questionable hymns and a novel liturgy disconnected from Lutheran heritage (CW21) 3. Separate the youth from the church through youth rallies, WELS youth nights, etc. (2022) 4. Implement pre-evangelism as a precondition to sharing the Gospel (2022) 5. Promote non-liturgical contemporary congregations on WELS Connections to normalize CoWo (2022) 6. Soften doctrinal statements as in our man and woman roles document (2023) 7. "100 in 10" initiative opening new missions churches that worship like (5) and require additional pastors per year in declining synodical and pastoral candidate demographics (2022-2032) 8. Accomplish (7) by either installing lay clergy, lowering the requirements for ordination, or by consolidating and closing "old" confessional liturgical churches. (future date) 9. Boomers die off, further closing/consolidating "old" confessional liturgical church

(Cmon, WELS, even Bing knows the Lord our Righteousness is Christ!) NIV11 is the translation of choice in the WELS. The NIV11's rendering of Jeremiah 23:6 and 33:16 belies an underlying concern in how the NIV11 weakens or removes OT messianic prophecy. Both passages call our Lord "The LORD Our Righteous Savior" in the NIV11, not "Our Righteousness". Jeremiah 23 is the OT reading for Christ the King Sunday in Year C, and Pentecost 9 in Year B for the 3-year lectionary. Jeremiah 33 is the OT reading for Advent 1 in the one-year lectionary.  The NIV84 study Bible notes Jeremiah 23:6 as "One of the most important Messianic passages in Jeremiah; echoed in 33:15-16." The EHV study Bible notes "Jesus the Messiah is properly called the LORD Our Righteousness because our righteousness before God’s judgment is Jesus’ righteousness which is credited to us through faith (Romans 3:23–28 and Philippians 3:8–9). " For Jeremiah 33:16, the EHV notes "The

(1) Recently the question of women writing theology has surfaced due to the book by Molly Lackey. Associated with it, the question of the authority of anon posters criticizing the publication of a theology book written by a woman. So far I can tell nothing uncouth was said of Mrs. Lackey, but unfortunately the conversations were deleted from Gottesdienst. While the Gottesdienst Crowd (sans Rev. Braaten) appears to oppose commentary by the anonymous, the discussion for the moment has been scuttled. Rev Braaten has been developing a set of theses which appear to be encouraging  to set the tone for discussing a woman's role in theology, setting the stage for further discussion.  (2) On women writing theology: Rev Braaten's theses and the subsequent blog post capture the frame very well. I won't rehash it here, other than to say first, while advancements in technology create opportunities it does not require us to reinterpret Scripture in light of technology. We are not more e

A few weeks back the Lutheran internet was abuzz with Christian Nationalism on the mind . Well now it's Rev. Tyrel Bramwell's chance to air his thoughts . Rev Bramwell as always is thoughtful but holds no punches. The crux of the matter is that the label Christian Nationalist is "[a] verbal allergen meant to keep people away from the thought that people should bring their beliefs with them into the civic realm, let it shape the public discourse of the nation inasmuch as Christians are involved in that discourse" He then proceeds to remind us of our robust doctrine of the distinction - not separation - of church and state. The  Augsburg Confession, Article XXVIII:11ff  reminds us  "For civil government deals with other things than does the Gospel. The civil rulers defend not minds , but bodies and bodily things against manifest injuries, and restrain men with the sword and bodily punishments in order to preserve civil justice and peace." Minds belong to the C

"Luther's polemical writings make the one who already believes the truths he defends with all his heart rejoice, they strengthen the weak in faith , they make the hitherto doubtful certain, they give full light to the hitherto ignorant of the matter and to the one who out of weakness is caught in error, and they crush the willfully resisting opponent of truth ." H/T  Back To Luther

  The Wauwatosa extolled by the WELS, contra what Wauwatosa themselves held dear. ' "Historical Thinking" was a trademark of Koehler's theology especially. "Faith-life," mentioned here by Hensel, is not what would be recognized as "Wauwatosan" today by anyone outside the Protes'tant Conference. Perhaps it was the Protes'tant controversy itself that made this aspect of the Wauwatosans' work fade into the background for the Wisconsin Synod. The nature of faith-life - the Christian life, justification and sanctification, Law and Gospel, etc. - was divisive. The Wauwatosans' work in this field was, at least to some extent, repudiated within the synod. Wisconsin synod commentators on the "Wauwatosa Theology" usually point to exegetical sensitivity as its main accomplishment. This stands in contrast to what Hensel posits here." '  The Hardening , pg. 348. 

Many of our modern-day pastors make a primary virtue out of winsomeness. Lenski offers a corrective: "To call brotherly love the articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesiae  [that is, the doctrine on which the Church stands or falls -nihil]  is to think that apples can grow where there is no tree . Ἀγάπη is the love of true comprehension and understanding coupled with corresponding purpose . Thus its decline is lack of this understanding with which diminution of the energy of its proper purpose goes hand in hand. As for the understanding and purpose of love, note how Jesus makes it plain: “If a man love me, he will keep my words” - Lenski's commentary on The Revelation of Jesus Christ, 2:4.

The WELS is neither careful nor discerning in its introduction of Evangelical songs into our hymnal.  The WELS is introducing "WELS Youth Night" a quarterly event to gather the youth within a circuit for fellowship. They provide resources for devotionals and activities, along with a "suggested song list." Check the list below. All but three are licensed by Getty, two are contemporary and licensed elsewhere, the final hymn is an Anglican hymn. If we were filling in the matrix above, we'd have 11 hymns in the lower-left and one hymn in the lower-right, if we make the most generous allowances for "Before the Throne of God above." It did not appear in the previous hymnal or TLH.  WELS Youth Night – Song List (welscongregationalservices.net)   The WELS is reinforcing the thought that the youth need something different, new and special to bring them closer to Christ. This is flawed for a number of reasons. First, "teenager" as a distinction is a mi

"As pastors this has to be coming out in our sermons. How can we not be applying the word of God to a society which, in the name of wokeness, is actually urging and funding and advertising and teaching for our children to have parts of their bodies amputated, to be flooded with hormones, to suit the ideology that says even an underage child should be able to choose what sex they are going to have? How can we not speak out against that? How can we not pray mightily for God to work contrition and repentance if not judgement on that sort of thing ... To be confessional means to speak according the content and, I think, the pattern of our Lutheran confessions, so we not only confess based on what we believe based on the inerrant words of Scripture and all that doctrinal stuff in the creeds and the Apology and the catechism and so forth. But we also are taught to go on and say, and as a result of the Biblical doctrine, we oppose this. We are against that. We do not agree with this. We

By this sign, Conquer! Something was in the air this week as we got hit by Christian Nationalism from multiple fronts: The Gottesdiesnt Crowd:  TGC 232 — Christian Nationalism Stone Choir:  Christian Nationalism Is Submission to God Issues Etc.:  3054. Christian Nationalism – Andrew Walker, 11/1/22 Dr. Jordan Cooper  What is the Deal with Christian Nationalism? and Matthew Cochran caught it a week in advance,  14 Points of Christian Nationalism – A Draft Your humble host received TGC and Stone Choir with great joy and mustered his way through Issues and Cooper. Receive the fruit of my labors.  The Gottesdienst Crowd  Rev. Braaten with Rev. Ramirez Nationalism is a natural extension of kith and kin. It's Godly. One of the big points Ramirez made is we need to speak clearly between the 19th century definition of Nationalism and the word as we use it today. In the 19th century it was simply flipping the switch from monarchism to popular vote. By hijacking "love of country" t

 

  Byung-Chul Han: “I Practise Philosophy as Art” - ArtReview " The smartphone is the devotional object of the digital-information regime. As a tool of repression it acts like a rosary, which in its handiness the mobile device represents. To ‘like’ is to pray digitally. We continue to go to confession. We expose ourselves voluntarily, yet we’re no longer asking for forgiveness, but rather for attention." " Tapping and swiping a smartphone is almost a liturgical gesture, and it has a massive effect on our relationship to the world.  " " Blaise Pascal once said that instead of despairing over a loss of faith, one should simply go to mass and join in rituals such as prayer and song, in other words mime, since it is precisely this that will bring back faith. The external transforms the internal, brings about new conditions. Therein lies the power of rituals. And our consciousness today is no longer rooted in objects. These external things can be very effective in st

  Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

"Interpreters have noted that the evangelist gives the reader important hermeneutical guidance for understanding his Gospel, including its sacramental teaching, after the account of the cleansing of the temple in chapter two, where he states: “When, therefore, [Jesus] was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken” (John 2:22).7 Even as the original hearers of Jesus did not understand some of his teaching about his death and resurrection until after the resurrection (e.g., “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” in John 2:19), so also they did not understand some of his teaching about the sacraments until after the resurrection and ascension when the sacraments began to play a very significant role in mediating the presence and forgiveness of Jesus. If one understands Jesus’ discourses in this Gospel as sermons that John delivered to the post-Easter church

  Would that our WELS pastors and altar guilds took such pains with the holy body and blood of Christ.

Adiaphora is never done tabula rasa. Adiaphora is exercised in the context of the Church that has been handed down to us. "We believe, teach and confess that the community of God in every place and every time has, according to its circumstances, the good right, power and authority to change and decrease or increase ceremonies <that are truly adiaphora>. They should do this thoughtfully and without giving offense, in an orderly and appropriate way, whenever it is considered most profitable, most beneficial, and best for good order, Christian discipline and the Church's edification." (FC SD X 9)  That is, we have an existing set of practice which reinforces our doctrine, and in view of those existing practices we evaluate new ones against the criteria of which practice is: Most profitable Most beneficial Best for good order Best for Christian discipline Best for the Church's edification With the underlying assumption that these new practices reflect our Lutheran d

" The gates of hell do not prevail, because the Church has hell under siege." TGC 214 — A Lutheran Kuyperian Vision? — Gottesdienst Weedon's Blog: Matthew 11:12 from Weimarische Bibel-Werk : But from the days of John the Baptist   (from the time when he began to fulfill his office)   until now the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence   (the Kingdom of God will be preached through the Gospel and everyone attempt to force an entry to it, Luke 16:16. Men seize the Gospel with determination like men taking a city. Luther: The consciences which have taken the Gospel to heart will allow no one to wrest it from them!)   and the violent  (the repentant sinners who in true faith stand against temptations by the power of the Spirit, and crucify and bring to nothing the evil desires of their sinful flesh)   take it by force  (press into the kingdom of heaven, from which it is apparent that John’s teaching and baptism have had a great effect).

"Adiaphora is not a license for the human will to do what God never intended." Asking "what is lawful" (that is, what can we get away with) is a form of legalism. Instead, we should be asking "What is beneficial?"

  "I Come O Savior To Thy Table" - all 15 verses - Karaoke. 

  "Shall we despond, draw back, and give our names to the rapproach of the generations to come because the burden of the hour seems to us heavy? God in his mercy, forbid! If all others are ready to yield to despondency and abandon the struggle, we children of the Reformation dare not." -Charles Porterfield Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and its Theology .

  "Likewise, when there are useless, foolish displays that are not profitable for good order, Christian discipline, or evangelical practice in the Church, these also are not genuine adiaphora, or matters of indifference." (FC SD X 7) 

  Rev. Mark Surburg - The Rite of Confirmation: Teaching Lutherans to be Lutherans for Life? Three theses 1. Confirmation has emphasized the subjective appropriation of faith. 2. It has taught the non-sacramental life to those who usually have to wait until 8th grade to receive the Sacrament of the Altar 3. It is a terminal event, heavily weighted with cultural importance, that marks the end of catachesis, and teaches youth that they are done learning about the faith. Watch the whole thing ... includes the origin modern confirmation rite as Melanchthonian, not Lutheran (let the reader understand).... Erasmian influence and thus humanist in nature... the rare proof of Chemnitz' fallibility (!) ... Spener's endorsement as a "renewal of the baptismal covenant"...  Rationalism's replacement of baptism with confirmation... functional Arminianism...

https://fb.watch/fqjIeCNl5S/ The cardinal sins of the WELS are well encapsulated in this bible study led by Rev. Jim Behringer, Directory of the WELS Special Ministries. One Form of Worship Two minutes in: "When I was growing up there were no service folders, and as a result you used the same liturgy every Sunday... there was one liturgy... now that you have a service folder, we can now be creative with liturgy." Perhaps Rev. Behringer should consult the preface to the small catechism to revisit Luther's thoughts of various forms and creativity in worship. What makes creativity a virtue? Novelty in forms of worship is divisive. My grandfather had a stroke but knew the TLH liturgy by heart and a good core of hymns that were regularly sung. When CW was introduced in the mid-90's, he could no longer worship the new liturgy and novel hymns. Creativity was divisive. Going on visits to members with Alzheimer's, they can seem comatose and unresponsive until you start quo

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If your WELS pastor likes the NIV11, ask him his thoughts on Acts 6. If he sees nothing wrong with the rendering of Acts 6 in NIV11, ask him if he approve of women voters? Intrepid Lutherans: NIV 2011: A brotherly debate Kinda sus.

"my boy" "massacred"

 "Just as scripture teaches a general, gracious will of God for the salvation of all men, so also it certainly teaches the special election of individuals to salvation. The eternal election of God is the cause of faith in the elect, however election did not happen in view of the faith of the elect. One may ask, can you make sense of that for yourself? What then? God wants to save all, but again he has elected only a few who alone are saved? No, I can't make sense of that for myself, however, has God revealed his truth to us, so that we should make sense of it for ourselves? No, exactly the opposite. We believe it as he has revealed it to us." -Adolf Hoenecke,  The Election Controversy (nph.net)

The Internet is fundamentally different from previous technologies. Books gathered. Radio gathered. Internet scatters. When a book was written by an author it carried the intonation of the author, the intention of the author. A few authors publish a few books read by an audience orders of magnitude larger than the authorship base. Readership is a communal experience which brought people a disparate distances together - intellectually, relationally, theologically. Families gathered around the radio to have a shared experience with millions of other families across nations and the world - again, gathering. The Internet is a scattering experience. We have a billion voices saying a billion things to a billion people, and many of those "voices" aren't human. The digital experience approaches the digital version of an uncanny valley - the idea that a computer generated person can be so close to appearing human, yet there is an element that places a space between us and it - lik